I read "Pain Erasure" when I was 10 and began practicing massage therapy after that. Through years of swimming and coaching gymnastics, etc what I learned through her book helped me keep my girls healthy. After bodywork/chiro and specific exercise saved me from surgery post-car-accident and helped me maintain a nearly pain-free status I began pursuing massage as a potential career and went to the classes.

Yes, I've heard of her. I may still have a copy of one of her books somewhere, but I must admit, I haven't read it all, though I may have skimmed it back when I got it. I got it in about 1989.

I'm sorry I don't have any other input than that. :?

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells ...

I too heard of her way before Massage School (1997)... I recall reading about it in a popular magazine of the day, something like Ladies Home Journal. My guess the reason we don't hear about her much in the MT world is that Bonnie Prudden was really more about bringing massage/pain relief to the masses... teaching them how to help themselves.
Not something that is very common in our society these days.

“Try to be like the turtle -- at ease in your own shell” - Bill Copeland

There were several researchers looking into trigger points and therapy as early as the 1930's-1940's. My guess as to why Travell is mentioned more often is because she was the first female physician in the white house and also a female physician during the time when women typically didn't have those types of positions. Travell is really known more for the amount of research she contributed on the etiology of trigger points, not so much for therapy to treat them.

It's probably due to lack of great marketing, marketing & more marketing. I didn't really hear of Prudden until several years after I finished massage school (which was almost ten years ago.)

There is a Bonnie Prudden grad in my area and he calls himself a certified myotherapist. He is certified by the Bonnie Prudden school and not the state. He didn't take the seminar courses, he took the long program.

I've met her. I took a weekend course back in 2003, but then determined that it wasn't really my thing.

the long course mentioned above is quite a long course, assuming I remember correctly.

Prudden was working with Travell, when an injection, or the prep for an injection eased the trp and ended the pain for a pt. That is when she started to not do injections and started elbowing people instead. Drawing circles on panties and the like. It was a fun course.

Squash Blsm - you crack me up!! My thoughts exactly.... "who's Bonnie Prudden?" indeed! Of course, I can be accused of being as old or older than dirt some days, LOL. Heard of her waaaaaay back before massage school in the 70s and early 80s................

Anastasia B

Be who you are and say what you feel, because people who mind don't matter, and people who matter don't mind. - Theodore S. Geisel - [Dr. Seuss][

I'm Bonnie's daughter - just discovered you while searching stories about my mother on the net. Haven't figured out quite how to use this site - if you want to read about me www.suzyprudden.com. My sister and I are writing a book about the memories people have about our mother. If you'd like to share a memory you have, contact me at storiesaboutBonnie@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yeah. I think she was a patient of Travell's. Trigger point work has been around since before Prudden. There was a chiropractor named Raymond Nimmo who was doing neuromuscular back in the day, under another name (i think it was called the Receptor Tonus Method or something like that) and you also had Chaitow and Lief. I think these people were before Prudden. I'm sure her stuff is good. There's just no telling how long trigger point work has been around in one form or another. I'm sure each "flavor" of trigger point work has it's own unique contributions.